Longer Range Plans

I loved this post from Sharon, as it reminded me that M & I are due for resetting our own priorities, & talking them through to make sure we agree on where we're headed in the long-term as a family.  We have restructured some of our goals & long-term plans, but here's where we landed.

Priority order:

1. We're going to sell our vacation house. This has been a very difficult decision (mostly for me - M is very pragmatic). We LOVE our vacation house - more than our primary residence, in fact. However, owning that house means we can never remodel our primary residence, which is in desperate need of a major remodel. I'm glad we discussed and reached a conclusion of how to fund our long(er) range goals, but I'm definitely still wrapping my head around this one. Our timeline for getting the house listed & closing is a year (we'll list in the spring), but we're not desperate to sell. We estimate that we will break even (after closing costs & fees), but selling the house will free up close to $3,000/month.
2. Pay off our second mortgage. Doing this will free us up those funds to pay for the remodel.  Our timeline for paying this off is 2017. We currently owe $182K.
3. Fund a remodel for our primary residence. As you can see from #2, we will use the money freed up by paying off the second mortgage (and, maybe part of the money from the vacation house) to pay for our remodel.We don't have a solid estimate for how much we will need to spend, but plan to start investigating. I think somewhere under $300K. Our timeline is the same as above - start funding in 2017.
4. Fully fund the boys college tuition funds. We save in a 529 plan that covers college tuition, & have a plan in place for funding that account. We're still on the fence about how to fund other college expenses (room & board, books etc), but we will likely figure that out as we get closer. Our kids are 5 & 6. Four years of tuition equals 400 credits, and we currently have 172 credits for each child. Our goal was to have 200 credits in each account by the end of 2012, thus reaching the 50% mark. However, I don't think we're be able to get there & have prioritized paying down our second mortgage over this goal.Our timeline for fully funding these accounts is 2020, when our boys are 13 & 14.  The cost (in current dollars, & the tuition credit prices rise each year) is just under $80,000.
5. After we accomplish goals 1-4, barring any other "new" financial goals, our plan is to pay off our primary residence before we retire. We'll then be moving to Hawaii when/after the boys are in college. Our timeline is to have our primary residence paid off by 2023.We owe $546K on this.

Our next long(er) range step is to establish a 2013 budget (both yearly & monthly) & look for other opportunities to reprioritize our spending to match our goals. How do you prepare for a new year? Do you do long range goal setting & tracking?